Wedding Day Dead: A Murder on Maui Mystery (22 page)

“I think he must have been wearing a ring or something.”

“I should take you to the emergency room. I think you’re going to need stiches.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t want it to scar.”

“I could use a good scar on my face. Maybe people won’t mess with me then.”

“You’re crazy. You know that, don’t you?”

I smiled and then winced. The movement of my face from the smile went right up to the cut on my head.

“If you won’t go to the emergency room, at least let me bandage it up.”

Alana left and came back a minute later with a first aid kit. She opened the small box and removed a tube of ointment and a box of bandages. She spread the ointment on the cut, and then placed the bandage on my head just above my eye.

“All patched up,” she said while balling up the paper wrapper of the bandage.

“Thank you,” I said.

She walked over to the kitchen island and leaned her back against the counter top.

“So, what’s next for tomorrow? Do you want to re-interview anyone?” she asked.

I looked out the window of her kitchen into her backyard. I’d always liked the landscaping she’d done. There was a nice round patio that was surrounded
by several planters, all filled with colorful red and yellow flowers. The grass was neatly manicured, as usual. Tall trees blocked her neighbor’s view into her yard.

I thought back to the first time I’d exchanged more than one or two words with her. It was at Foxx’s house, and she’d shown up to arrest Foxx. I’d defended him, spouting out ridiculous words and phrases like I was some know-it-all television lawyer. She called me on my bullshit, but I deserved it. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I’d just wanted to help a friend in the middle of a serious crisis.

We exchanged flirtations with each other over the next few weeks, even though we were on opposing missions, and then there was our first date. I couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked. My nervousness was hard to control that evening, but an excitement and thrill also ran through my body.

Now, I was here again in her home, a bandage plastered across my head. She and I stood at a crossroads, all because of a kiss, and fear. When you broke everything down, it was always about fear. We protect all or part of ourselves because we’re always so damn afraid of getting hurt. I realized then and there that if it doesn’t kill you, then what’s the point of being afraid? And if it does kill you, well, we all have to go sometime, anyway.

“You know that you could have just as easily taken me home instead of here,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Harry’s is almost exactly at the half-way point between your home and mine. You could have just gone there.”

“I guess I knew I had the first aid kit here.”

“Really?” I asked.

“What are you getting at?”

I really don’t know what came over me at that moment. Maybe I was filled with extreme confidence after the fight. Maybe the adrenaline was still pumping through my body. I really didn’t know then, and I certainly don’t know now as I write this for you.

I walked across the kitchen. Alana was still leaning against the counter of the kitchen island. I stopped just a couple of feet from her. I clearly and intentionally invaded her personal space as I had done the night of our first date. She didn’t back away from me then. She didn’t back away now. Of course, she couldn’t back away with the island behind her, but you get the point.

“I think you brought me back here because you knew we’d be alone. Foxx is probably at his home this time of night. We both like him, but he would have just gotten in the way.”

Alana said nothing.

“If I may play the role of detective, this investigation was really the first clue. You don’t need me looking into this case. You have a thousand times the experience I do when it comes to detective work.”

“You’d already started. It didn’t make sense for me to repeat your work.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“And I’m too close to Hani. I need someone else to keep me objective.”

“I don’t believe that ‘too close’ nonsense, and neither do you,” I said.

“So what is it?”

“You wanted to be near me again.”

“Oh, look who’s suddenly full of themselves after their first bar fight,” she said.

“Who said it was my first bar fight?”

But just between you and me, it was.

I closed the remaining distance between us and pressed my body against hers. She didn’t try to push me away. I placed my hand on the side of her face. She still didn’t pull away.

“I’ve missed you,” I said.

She said nothing.

I leaned forward and kissed her, and then I leaned back and looked at her. She never took her eyes away from mine. I kissed her again. She reached up and placed her hand behind my neck, pulling me back to her. We kissed for a few moments, slowly getting more aggressive with each passing second.

I lifted her shirt and ran my fingertips across her smooth stomach. I slowly made my way upward and eventually cupped her breasts. With the other hand, I reached down to her pants and undid the button. She helped me tug them down, while she stepped out of them.

Then she reached for my shorts, but I was already pulling them away. I kissed her again and lifted her onto the edge of the counter. Alana spread her legs open and wrapped them around me.

You can figure out what happened after that. I would like to go into more detail, but I’m trying to be more of a gentleman these days.

Afterwards, we held onto each other. Both of us tried desperately to catch our breaths. I hadn’t planned on this happening tonight. I didn’t know if it would ever happen again. But I had gotten her back, and I would never let her go.

XIX

I’m Sorry

I
spent the night at Alana’s. It was the first time I had done so in weeks. I wondered how things would be in the morning. We had made a giant step toward getting back together, and as far as I knew, we were back together, but I wasn’t sure if she felt the same way. I usually woke up before she did, and this morning wasn’t the exception. I stayed in bed though. When she eventually woke, she reached for me. Our love making wasn’t as intense as it had been the night before in the kitchen, but it was perhaps even more pleasurable. We took our time exploring each other’s bodies, and by the end, I knew for certain we were back.

After showering and getting dressed, we sat on her back patio and had coffee.

“You’re thinking about the investigation, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Is it that obvious?”

“You have that faraway look in your eyes,” she said.

“Just realizing that there’s something I should have been asking myself but haven’t.”

“What is it?”

“The first two questions were obvious. Who would want to kill Panos and who could have followed him to the marina without Hani noticing?”

“I actually don’t think it would have been too difficult to follow without her realizing it. If she was following Panos, she would have been giving his car all her attention. She probably didn’t even think someone might be behind her.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“So what’s the question you should have been asking yourself ?”

“How did the person get in Hani’s house to frame her with the flashlight? You said there was no sign of forced entry, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How do people normally break into a house?”

“Usually they break a window. Sometimes door have glass panels in them. It’s pretty easy to knock one of those out and then just reach inside to unlock the door.”

“But that didn’t happen at her house,” I said.

“No.”

“What about picking a lock?” I asked.

“It’s not that hard if you know what you’re doing. Hell, you can learn to pick a lock on YouTube.”

“Were there any signs the lock had been tampered with?”

“Not the lock, but the doorknob,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m pretty sure the person went in through the backdoor in the garage. The outside of the doorknob was free of fingerprints. The inside was not.”

“Whose prints were on the inside?”

“We found two sets of prints. One belongs to Hani, the other is someone else. They aren’t in the system,” she said.

“Didn’t you tell me Hani had a tenant for a while?” I asked.

“I’ve reached out to her and asked if she could go to her local police station and get printed so we can compare.”

“Has she done that?”

“Not yet.”

“You said the outside of the doorknob didn’t have prints?”

“It was wiped clean,” she said.

“So the person picks the lock somehow, opens the door, plants the flashlight, and then wipes the doorknob after they shut the door.”

“Probably.”

“I assume Adcock knows all of this,” I said.

“Of course. It doesn’t seem to bother him.”

We finished our coffee, and then decided to visit Hani. I followed Alana to the jail since she needed to go to work afterward.

Hani looked a little better than the last time I’d seen her, but just barely.

“You’re my second guests of the morning,” Hani said.

“Really? Who else came by?” Alana asked.

“Makani. He wanted to check on me.”

“The guy’s really stuck on you,” I said.

“It was nice of him to come by,” Alana said.

Hani turned to me.

“He said you and Kai got into a fight.”

“Him and some other guy. Much bigger dude.”

“Don’t know his friend. I tried to stay away from Kai as much as possible,” Hani said.

“Understandable,” I said.

“It wasn’t easy, though. Sometimes I thought Makani and Kai were glued at the hip.”

“Strange they could be so different,” I said.

Hani nodded, and then she looked at us both, like she was suddenly examining us.

“Something’s different. Did you two work things out?” she asked.

“It was the bar fight,” I said. “She couldn’t withstand my manly charm.”

Hani looked at Alana.

“It wasn’t the bar fight,” Alana said.

“I’m glad for you both. At least someone around here should be happy.”

I thought back to my morning conversation with Alana. I turned to Hani.

“After your tenant moved out, did you change the locks?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t have a chance because I was busy planning the wedding.”

“I assume she returned your keys to you,” I said.

“She gave me back the two keys she had. I had a third.”

“Was the garage door key the same as the front door?” I asked.

“Yes, all the locks can be opened by the same key.”

“Did anyone else have a key other than you and your tenant?” Alana asked.

“I gave Panos one of the keys once we got back.”

So much for that theory,
I thought.

We spoke with Hani for as long as we could. We talked about random things, like how I was having trouble keeping Maui the dog from occasionally attacking Foxx. We didn’t speak much about her case. There wasn’t much new
to say. We were at a dead end. We didn’t tell Hani that, but I think she already knew. The visiting hours ended, and we told her we’d be back as soon as we could.

I followed Alana out to her car in the parking lot.

“Anything new on the Peter Bell case?” I asked.

“Not much. We tracked down the card players Peter Bell owed money to. They have solid alibis.”

“So you still think it’s connected to Panos’ death?”

“Undoubtedly.”

Alana looked at her watch.

“I better get over to the station. I’m way late.”

“I’ll see you later,” I said.

I kissed Alana goodbye. She climbed into her car and drove away. I found my car, which was on the opposite side of the parking lot. I wasn’t surprised by the news the card players checked out. I never thought it was them to begin with. Peter Bell had blackmailed the killer. There was no other explanation.

I left the jail and drove to Harry’s Bar. I figured I owed them an apology for last night’s fight. I also owed them for my unpaid bar tab. Harry’s had become a favorite locals’ hangout of mine, and I was a little worried the owner might ban me from the bar. The last thing I wanted was to get stuck going to a tourist trap. I had spoken to the owner a few times, and he seemed like a nice guy. Maybe I could convince him I wasn’t the one responsible for the fight, even though I threw the first punch, or elbow in this case.

Harry’s was owned by a guy named Bart. At first, I thought he’d bought an established place that already had a reputation as Harry’s, and he didn’t want to mess up the vibe. But Bart told me he built the bar himself. Apparently, he thought people were more inclined to frequent a Harry’s than a Bart’s. He was probably right.

I got there before the place officially opened, but fortunately the door was unlocked. I entered and found Bart wiping down the tables. He looked up at me when he heard the door open.

“Looks like they got yah,” Bart said.

He pointed to my head. I touched my head and felt the bandage just above my eye. I had forgotten about it.

“Not too bad,” I said.

I reached into my back pocket and removed my wallet.

“I came by to apologize for yesterday and also pay my bill.”

Bart held up an open hand.

“No worries. I’ve come to expect a bar fight once in a while. Comes with the territory.”

“Still, it’s not something I want to be known for. Let me at least pay for the beers.”

“Already taken care of,” he said.

“Really?”

I put my wallet back in my pocket.

“Some guy came by this morning. Apologized for the fight and paid your bill,” Bart said.

“Was it one of the guys I fought with?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t recognize him.”

“What did he look like?”

“Hawaiian guy. Medium build. Quiet fella.”

“I don’t suppose his name was Makani,” I asked.

Bart thought about it for a moment.

“Might have been. I think that’s what he said his name was.”

“That’s Kai’s brother.”

I could tell from Bart’s confused look he had no idea who Kai was either.

I pointed to the bandage on my head.